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About the Koteras

A Dutchie, her Japanese husband, and their little one. Abroad. Making memories and plushies.

The Dutchie was born on the ‘Eleventh’ of August in the year of the ‘Monkey’ (1980). She met her Japanese husband-to-be in 2004, when they were foreign exchange students at Emory University in the United States. They are currently residing in the United Kingdom with their England-born Dutch-Japanese little one.

They moved to the United Kingdom after three years together in the San Francisco Bay Area.

They got secretly married in Osaka, after three years together in Japan. It was just the two of them and they celebrated by blowing bubbles over Yodogawa River.

After a three-year-long-distance-relationship between Europe (Belgium & the Netherlands) and Japan, the Dutchie moved to Japan where she taught English, spent time with her boyfriend, and discovered a passion for making plushies.

The Dutchie and her Japanese husband love making memories. Crazy and fun memories but also loving and meaningful memories, both abroad and at home.

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23 thoughts on “About the Koteras”

First of all, I love, love, love your header – it is so cute and appropriate!! And what a whirlwind of a romance. Plus, you guys have been here and there and everywhere – it definitely shakes things up and keeps life interesting. Look forward to reading more about your adventures! :)

I’ve recently done the Liebster Award thing on my blog, and these days I don’t have much time to blog. It’s a struggle to post the weekly Babel updates on time, that little cutie sure is keeping me busy. So thanks for nominating me again, though. I really appreciate it.

Absolutely, not a rude question! Although many of my American white friends seem to have that opinion, ‘political correctness’ makes asking any questions very hard there. But as an European-Asian (yes you are correct!) I have no problem with it all. People ask me all the time because they can see something different in me. By blood, I’m half Indonesian, half Dutch. Now, I’m going to hop over to your blog and see what kind of mix you are. I love mixes!

Sit down with a cup of tea and biscuit – long comment alert! My background is complex but I’m essentially 50/50 Malaysian-Chinese/British. I’ve encountered quite a few Indonesian/Dutch mixes in my time, and always a pleasure to meet another.

Americans tend to have a very funny approach to ‘political correctness’ (which I’ve discussed on my blog). For example, the USA is a massively politically correct country, yet at the same time highly racist and racially segmented country, and everyone tip-toes around race like it’s a taboo subject, which sometimes makes it difficult to have a conversation about anything interesting.

Love your blog and it’s raised quite a few questions for me which I hope you don’t mind me asking:

1. Which cultures/languages are you planning to pass on to your little angel? Dutch? British? Japanese? Indonesian? I’ve always thought that when you throw more than 3 nationalities/races/identities into a mix, it can be tricky to pass all of those down to the children.

2. How do you identify in every day life? As Eurasian, or something else?

3. Do 50/50 Dutch-Indonesians Eurasians mainly identify as white? This isn’t a criticism or anything; I’m genuinely curious about how Eurasians identify themselves in different ways in different places. In my experience 50/50 Eurasians tend to identify as both white and Asian. However, against this trend, I’ve noticed Eurasians with a white American or Dutch parent tend to identify solely as ‘European/white’.

For example, I remember asking one friendly and chatty Dutch-Indonesian Eurasian at a conference if he was Dutch-Indonesian – he was, but he didn’t like me asking that question and he got very defensive and stopped talking to me. Of course he is an extreme example, but more generally I’ve noticed that Dutch and American Eurasians tend to identify more strongly with their white side than their Asian side. Again, no criticism at all, but I was wondering if there were any particular cultural reasons for that? It’s all very interesting.

4. I noticed the ‘AMWF’ tag on your blog – again, this isn’t a criticism but I’m really just curious about, again as a fellow Eurasian. Do you use the tag to connect with AMWF couples?

I just wonder as for me, the ‘AMWF’ and ‘WMAF’ label doesn’t apply to Eurasians, as when Eurasians date/marry Asians, whites, or other Eurasians, it isn’t ‘interracial dating’ or ‘dating out’ in the same way it is for monoracials. Again, this isn’t an attack and of course you identify how you want, it’s just a genuine question about something I am curious about.

I’m sorry if any of these questions are offensive or anything: honestly not my intention. And my apologies for the super long comment!

I’m just really excited to discuss being Eurasian with another Eurasian :)

Thanks for the long comment and questions. It’s hard to offend a Dutchie in general. You can ask whatever you want, and I can decide whether I’ll answer or not. No offense taken. This attitude used to baffle my American friends. One even asked: “So, you just assume I can handle the responsibility of deciding whether I want to answer?” My answer: “You’re an adult, aren’t you?”

Anyways, your questions are very interesting. I’ll answer out of order, I hope I don’t miss anything. If I do, just ask again.

I can’t speak for other Dutch/Indos but I don’t identify myself by race, I identify myself by culture and nationality. They’re not the same, there are lots of different races in my country. As you know, I am a mix of two races: half Caucasian and half Asian. But that is just my blood or body. Who I am, is my mind. And that was formed by where and how I was raised and that was all Dutch. So for all intents and purposes I’m Dutch. I don’t feel a connection to Indonesia at all. My mom (by blood Indonesian) born and raised in the Netherlands is also super Dutch. We only speak Dutch. One of my brothers is the only one who identified a bit more with being half Indonesian, actually. And he’s currently in Indonesia to get married to an Indonesian girl (she’s half actually because her dad is Japanese) tomorrow! So my mother is currently in Indonesia for the first time in her life. She loves the food, but the culture is very much against her principles. If anything being there probably makes her feel more Dutch and less Indonesian. I’ve never been there and I feel no need to ever go there.

Everyday life: I don’t feel white or Asian. I just feel Dutch. I have lived abroad for almost 20 years of my life. Everytime I visit the Netherlands I get a little culture shock because I have adopted new ways of doing things from the other cultures I’ve lived in. The longer I live away from my country, the more I feel Dutch. Yet, right now living in the Netherlands would probably be the hardest for me, culturally. Now, I’m more comfortable in the UK, Japan, or the States.

Indeed, I use the AMWF tag to connect with other couples. My interest isn’t in interracial dating, mine is in international or cross-cultural dating. I have many interracial relationships (friendships) that are not international/cross-cultural. So yeah those are all Dutchies that look different from me. Those friendships are fairly easy because of our shared nationality and culture. My international/cross-cultural relationships (including my marriage) are the more interesting ones because of our differences in ways of life and understanding of the world. I am interested in blogs about West-East couples. The AMWF and WMAF tags help me find those and them me. My husband is the Asian Male and I am the (half) White or Western Female.

We’re raising Babel trilingually. I speak to him in Dutch, Yasu speaks to him in Japanese, and when we’re together we speak (American) English. Yasu and I are not fluent in each other’s languages so we always speak English to each other. It’s important to us that Babel speaks both Japanese and Dutch so he can communicate with all his family members.

Culture wise, that’s harder. Yasu and I are from very different cultures and we live in yet another completely different one. Traditions and festivities wise we’re doing anything we grew up doing, so Dutch and Japanese holidays and fun traditions. And anything fun that happens in our (previous) host cultures we enjoy celebrating that as well (e.g. American Halloween or British Bonfire Night). As for values and morals, our little family’s culture is an amalgamation of mainly Japanese and Dutch cultures. Communication is key in a cross-cultural relationship and we have decided for ourselves what’s important for our family. Sometimes that coincides with Japanese beliefs and principles, sometimes with the Dutch. Sometimes with neither. We do what works for us and feels right for our family.

Babel’s ancestors are from 5 different countries: Japan, Netherlands, Indonesia, Belgium, and Spain. I don’t know how many races that is? Since Japan and Indonesia are both in Asia is that the same race? Who knows. It’s not important.

Babel already has two nationalities (so two passports) and since he was born in England he can get a British passport after we’ve lived here for 5 years (so in 2 years). So he will have 3 nationalities, but he will only have 1 identity. He is Babel Kotera born into a very international family and citizen of the world.

What do you like about the Netherlands? And which country do you currently live in?

Wow, this is super interesting, Dutchie. Thanks for taking the time to answer my long-ass comment!

What I like about the Netherlands: beautiful landscape, seems to have a lot of clear blue water everywhere (which might make you and your husband laugh but that reminds me a bit of Japan), extremely friendly and helpful people, clean and seemingly well-organised. I’m currently living in Switzerland but have also lived in the Belgium, Japan, UK (and other places) – I’m sure we could exchange plenty of stories on those places alone ;)